Minotaur's Dream Picture

For the Mythological creatures contest, I was inspired tell a story with this design. I've always found the Minotaur, the illegitimate cursed son sent to punish King Minos, to be a tragic figure. He is the horrific hybrid of human and beast, cursed to an existence where he must prey upon people to survive. However, he is not a simple heartless monster. In Greek black-figure and red-figure pottery depicting the Minotaur's death, the Minotaur is shown to have a bird escaping from his chest, which is a common representation of the human soul in Greek art. I began to wonder, what does this pitiable malformed boy do while he is trapped in the dark, cramped labyrinth. Perhaps he dreams of flying free, like Pegasus. I chose to illustrate this desire for freedom from his fate as a simple tool of punishment for King Minos.

I restricted my color pallet to only 5 colors, as was required by the Mythological Creatures contest, and was inspired to use colors found in Greek Red-Figure pottery, an artistic style which was popular between 530 BCE to 3 BCE. I decided to give the Minotaur blue eyes to make him appear more innocent; I also chose blue as an accent color, as it is complementary to the orange-tinged browns that dominate the design.

I wish to thank everyone who has taken the time to view this piece. I am eternally grateful to the DeviantArt community, especially to all my watchers! I have gone through some very difficult and demoralizing events, but the positive comments, excellent critiques, well wishes, and support I've received have helped to give me some confidence in my craft and motivated me to better myself as an artist. The DeviantArt community has given me hope for the future, a gift that I will treasure for a lifetime.

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While working on this piece, I did quite a bit of research into the Minotaur's myth. I just want to share some of the The name Minotaur is a shortening of the ancient Greek term Minotauros, which comes from combining Minos, the king whose hubris was being punished with the birth of the Minotaur, and Tauros, the ancient Greek spelling for the bull constellation we call Taurus. Our Pronunciations for ancient Greek words is often taken from Roman interpretations, which often differ from the original Greek language. The Minotaur's true name is Asterion, (the starry one) and suggests that he was associated with the constellation Tauros. He is the son of King Minos' Wife and the beautiful white Cretan Bull, who also appears in myths relating to Hercules and Theseus.